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Wednesday, June 12, 2013

Gnocchi (Italian small potato dumplings) 義式麵疙瘩

I have seen gnocchi posted in other bloggers last time, but never thinking to make them at home. After I tasted the real gnocchi during the recent Italy trip, then only I started to make them at home. My first impression of the gnocchi that we took in Italy, the texture was light like cloud !!
Gnocchi (pronoun as nyoh-kee) is very easy to make at home, just by mixing potato, flour and egg.
They are eaten as an alternative to soups or pasta.

I actually brought back two pack of frozen gnocchi from Italy. But they tasted bad, maybe due to already spoilt or too much of preservative added..

Before I throw the package away, i read the label in the packing as to confirm what ingredients they use to make this gnocchi. Also went thru few sites and video, and I made my first gnocchi, but it was failed to hold the shape after adding other ingredients. Anyway, I managed to make gnocchi that tasted light like cloud and able to hold its shape on the 2nd attempted!﻿

If compare homemade to the real gnocchi that I tasted, the texture is close to the original but the potato taste still has slight difference. The original can't really taste strong potato taste, not sure what type of potato they use, should be Italian potatoes..

Ya, don't ever use the common Holland potatoes that we easily found in the market, because they will tasted like "Kuih Keria", LOL.. ﻿

I learnt that bake potatoes in oven produce lighter gnocchi than boiled potatoes in water.﻿

In my next post, I will share with you the pasta dish that I cooked with this Gnocchi ..

Poke holes in potatoes with fork as to vent moisture as the potatoes cook. Bake the potatoes in their skins until tender, about an hour.

Remove potato skin while hot. Mash the potatoes through a potato ricer and into a large bowl. (If you don't have a potato ricer you can mash the potatoes by using fork, then sift the potato).

Add the cake flour, potato starch, egg yolk and salt. Mix by hand until you have a nice pliable ball of dough. Do not over-mix.

Prepare a work area and dust it with rice flour. Take the dough, a piece at a time, and roll it out gently with your hands until you have rolls about 1” in diameter.

Cut the tubes of dough into pieces ( about 7g per pc). Using a fork, press against a piece of the dough and roll it slightly to form an indentation (good for catching the sauce). As the gnocchi are made, place them on flat baking pan, lightly dusted with rice flour. Gnocchi is ready to put into simmering water for the next step.

You can also freeze the gnocchi if not use them immediately. Freeze them first on a floured or lined tray, then once frozen you can put them into a freezer bag for more easy storage.

Sonia, you really put a lot of effort to learn new recipes, good on you. When i was studying in australia, i love to ewt gnocchi, but cant find good ones here. They are tasted too floury and chewy, totally disappointing. Look fwd to find out your gnocchi dish.